we are just four days away from the end of the most expensive election season in the history of the country. with more than $350 million spent on ballot measures in california alone. and voter registration in the state has hit an all-time high with 18 million now on the rolls. who are the now voters and what are their interests and concerns? plus, a million giant fan faithf faithfuls hit the streets to celebrate their world series sweep. coming up next.

hello, i'm belva davis and welcome to "this week in northern california." joining me on the news panel tonight, josh richman, regional political reporter for the bay area news group. carla marin you've cci, "san francisco chronicle." and odette keeley, new america media anchor and executive producer. and in sacramento, john myers, kxtv news 10, political editor. well, this campaign season has been marked by massive amounts of spending from outside groups, yet, with all of the money spent and all of the people who paid attention, the race for president remains too close to call. and here in california, we're feeling the affects of an onslaught of political ads for candidates and boll lot meallot.

john, you were reporting on an $11 million political contribution to a group opposing proposition 30. tell us what the judge decided. >> well, a judge decided that mysterious arizona group needed to disclose its donors or disclose them to the state. the group appealed. the disclose sure is still tied up, as we speak. the disclosure hasn't happened. and the state and the attorney general and the fair political practice commission has asked the state supreme court to make the group give them the document so they can examine it to see if they have to disclose the doe mores. all of this is happening right before the election and whether to be seen. it's $11 million, a lot of money, until you kind of back up and look at the larger macro-focus here. the map light foundation, which tracks campaign money, both in california and other parts of the country, came out with a number recently that they calculate $350 million on ballot

measures alone this general election season in california, remember that doesn't include legislative congressional, anything else. 350 many ballot measures. prop 30, prop 32, this union paycheck protection measure and prop 37, in particular. about food labeling. those, plus molly munger's money on prop 38, i could go on and on. it has been a huge campaign -- >> belva: millionaire's row. >> talking about that, john, as belva said, the munger brother and sister team, amazing how much they've spent on their two measures. talk a little bit about this in terms of the billionaires who have weighed in or the millionaires, and how it sort of shaped this whole election season here in california. >> and you know, carla, you and i know it's fascinating. the track record of wealthy people in california trying to get their way in politics is pretty bad. governor wesley, governor

checky, and on. they never made it. these are people looking at ballot measures. molly munger, the civil rights attorney who have almost completely financed prop 38, that looks like it's going to fail on election day and her brother charles, they both got their money from their dad who is warren buffett's business partner. charlie munger, who operates in republican politics, has been financing this paycheck deduction measure and financing the anti-jerry brown tax measure, though he apparently didn't think he was. that's another story. and yet tom, the hedge fund manager, financing prop 39, i think that's the only one that looks safe at this point. and up got to wonder, i mean, what is it they want? do they see a civic duty, do they see a political future for them? tom, they wonder what he's going to do. but jerry brown is a guy who has been vexed by the munger family. in this race. right? molly munger's prop 38 could be

drawing support away from him and her brother charlie munger is financing the campaign apparently to kill his tax measure. >> belva: did one of them put more money in this week? >> the brother, charles, into this political action committee called the small business action committee. i'm not sure there are any small businesses involved in it. that's been fueling this no on 30, yes on 32 mix. this is a tremendous amount of money. and i don't think any of us who watch california politics, the folks there in the studio or me, are surprised this is where we're going. it is big money politics in california. >> john, i'm curious if any of that big money is going to try to address what may be a backlash with latino voters with prop 30 and the kind of feedback that california latino voters have, with governor jerry brown. polls are showing that there is significant support, even including latinos for prop 30, but we've heard from radio journalists, here in the san francisco bay area that a lot of

predominantly democratic la tee knowsre very disappointed with the three vetoes that jerry brown did, with immigrant bills like the farm workers rights bill, domestic bill of rights and the trust act. >> belva: would that really matter, when you have schools that would lose an enormous amount of money, universities that would lose funding, so many people that are in the groups we're talking about, who depend upon these state services. >> there was something very impassioned, definitely going to let john address this question and how this may be resolved by brown's group and himself. how impassioned latino voters are about what it means for them to have taken that citizenship, to have applied that right to vote, when out and vote and to feel like what the governor has done is to take away that right. >> well, and you know, it's interesting, because, at the same time, jerry brown moved forward on the california dream act and on the issue of driver's licenses for those undocumented immigrants who qualify into the program that president obama is

moving forward. i them jerry brown seeps this as the old canoe theory that he's practiced before. i will tell you, i think those vie taupes and a lot of other decisions were all done with an eye toward a coalition for this election. we felt it in sacramento that the governor was making decisions that were trying to set him up with what he thought was the best constituency at the polls. i think the voters have a choice to make about what issue they care most about what they have to mark that ballot on tuesday and i will say if we've looked at the way voter registration has increased, we've seen a lot of voters, we think are young vot voters, and those young voters, they really are a more diverse group ethnically. more diverse financially than a lot of the other voters in california. maybe that includes the latino community, as well. it's a great question. >> belva: well, have any of you heard anything about the attitude of people about the amount of money coming into the state, anybody at the table?

>> i know in the presidential ration, this has been a really interesting thing to watch the amount of money from silicon valley. it now surpasses hollywood and new york, which are two, of course, huge democratic fund-raising fonts. and i think money is everywhere, and we've seen in the presidential race, president come back here, 12 times, picking up cash, almost every month. this is -- >> and mitt romney's been here nine times, as well. >> that's right. >> never done a single public event. >> right. >> belva: has anybody done a real public event? >> the president early on did -- and this shows the importance of silicon valley again, some town hall meetings at facebook, he did one at linkedin. he's done a couple of events. maybe that one at solyndra that he doesn't want to remember now. but the fact is that there were very, very few public events, in the bay area, it was all about money, particularly money from silicon valley. >> the old days, politicians

would come, you could go to the -- >> that's all gone. that's over. >> belva: so, the access to these candidates, by the average voter, is -- has disappeared. >> the average voter needed a minimum of $100 to get into any of these things, certainly in the bay area. >> a lot in minority communities on each spectrum, if they are the donors, those hosts of th e these, or they are the common voters wanting to get access and not being able to do that. >> president obama having round table discussions $40,000 a head with the api community, he did one, he did a couple with the tech community. i mean, these became very specific events and josh is right. the old days of candidates having free, public events at least in california, where we don't matter, you've seen how many events they done in ohio in the last couple of days. we've been a footnote. >> i wonder, carla, you're

watching the presidential race more than anything. i mean, we're sitting here talking about this dynamic of what happens, do we have maybe a split, a popular vote in the electoral college, there's an interesting theory out there, that california may not matter electoral college wise but let's say california voters don't care about voting for the president, which i don't think is going to happen, it would depress the popular vote and we would have a split decision. i'm not saying that's going to happen, but at a certain point, he's got to care about us, right? >> at a certain point, you're right, john. the fact is, the popular vote, california, he's double digits ahead here. we know that. and with the impact of sandy, we don't really know how it's going to affect the popular vote on the east coast. >> belva: that is the storm. >> the storm, the hurricane. new jersey, you're talking about, new york, i'm hearing ohio there's some effects. this could be an issue. we really -- this is a -- could be a cliff hanger.

>> belva: we seem to be able to talk about most things, very little about issues in this whole election cycle, because there's been such a predominant tax and other groups contributing to races. again, we feel the ping of money when it comes to the congressional race. >> absolutely. and sacramento in particular has been an incredible hot bed of spending on congressional races because there are actually four pretty well contested races that sort of fall within that media market. there's the seventh district, where republican incumbent dan lundgren is in serious trouble as democratic challenger takes a second bite at the apple and that's considered a tossup race. jerry mcnearny is the only democratic incumbent who is considered to be a tossup in california, just got moved to that column yesterday by the cook political report. he faces a 25-year-old republican newcomer named ricky gill. >> both those races, those are

indian-american candidates, could make them the first in congress. that's an interesting thing. >> and then there's a latino challenger, jose hernandez taking on jeff denim of mow december those. hernandez is a former nasa astronaut, gotten a lot of buzz about his candidacy. that's a tossup, as well. and then a little bit less of a tossup is garamende against kim van. oxdah["s[bn

about valley issues, water and things. we're talking about medicare, who is cutting medicare? the infamous 700 so many million dollars that, you know, the romney plan, the obama care issues. i mean, it has become all of these national issues that those four races have focused on. they are almost -- they give us a slice of flavor. >> and, josh, we heard all along, nancy pelosi talk about the drive for 25. they need 25 seats to win back the house. she seems convinced, at least plays that part, that they're going to be able to do that. does that look possible? >> she plays that part very well. because it is her job to play that part. i don think anybody thinks that the democrats have a real shot at retaking the house in this election. i think the prevailing wisdom is, they will gain seats. but they will not have enough to put nancy pelosi back in the speaker's office. on the other hand, over in the senate, where a lot of people had thought that the democrats were vulnerable to losing the

senate, it now looks like they will retain control of the senate, as the republicans have faltered in states like missouri and indiana, massachusetts and a few other places. and so, we stand a very good chance, i think, of ending up with, once the smoke has settled here, having the status quo of exactly the balance of power that we had before this entire election cycle. i think the possibility of a sea change is quickly fading. >> and i think, you mention the smoke being cleared. we're not exactly sure when that might happen. >> oh, it's going to take a long time. i mean, more people in california are voting by mail than ever before. and a lot of them hold onto those ball lots to the last minute. it could take weeks for county election workers to tally those votes. so, close races, it could be a long time before we know how they are settled. >> belva: i'm going to ask each of you about issues. odette, you are here because there are been polls for the

first time that talk about issues that concern many minority groups. is there any common thread as to what these groups are interested i >> there is a common thread, belva, and this morning, what we released as the latest set of data from the field poll, not only does it look at the whole range of california voters, but also breaks out into specific ethnic grevoting groups. and, you know, this is a series of multilingual polls. six languages, includes white, nonhispanic, african-american, several asian groups, chinese, korean, vietnamese. and what the field poll was able to track from the gunning of the year through mid-september is what many have discussed, that during the last 22 years that california registration voter rolls, we know there's 18 million of them going to come out and vote there has been an increase of 4 million. and over 90% of that comes from the state's ethnic voter

population. la ttino latinos, 10%, now to 24%. asian from 3% to 8%. california became a blue state in the last 20 years because of the ethnic voting population and if i were to quote a field poll executive director mike decamilo, he says it's demography marching on. >> what you are talking about, odette, in two swing states, nevada and colorado, is going to be the key. i've been to those states. early, get out the vote, among the latino grass roots activists there, it's huge. and that could give president obama the margin there. >> belva: women, gender. >> women, you know, we had this week sandra fluke here in the bay area. reproductive rights activists. look, women have been for obama, he's enjoyed this gender gap for a long time. and in the last couple of weeks, romney has managed to shave that

down, very concerning to the reproductive rights groups and they've really been working this vote all over the country and the fact is that they tracked what they say is about 5 million women who they call obama defectors who may go to the other side, go to mitt romney and that could be a key margin in some of these swing states. >>

he's got ads out there that suggest he's not going to be activist on that issue. you're right about the issue of obama care for a lot offo women. birth control is an economic issue. and that's one of the things democrats have brought out in the last couple of weeks. >> belva: john, we have to ask you on issues question, with all of the money being spent for all of these seats, is there any issue you just said it was mostly about money, i guess. >> i think it's a reflection of the national campaigns. i think we're having a national discussion about health care, we're having a national dits cushion about budget priorities. you have a congress and a president, whoever that presiwhnt is, facing this fiscal cliff, as they are talking about in washington. so, you are hearing that a lot on the congressional level. i want to roll back, if i can, to the state ballot measures, because i do think that the most fascinating dynamic, to me, out of this ballot measure campaign has been jerry brown's continual

lobbying about not so much about what's great about prop 30, but what's bad if it fails. we've seen in polling and you talk to people that there is this real angst about these trigger cuts, these automatic spending cuts that were baked into the state budget, $6 billion worth, mostly to education. should prop 30 fail. you look at the pomin ipolling,s a very potent issue and brown knew that and seems to be campaigning on it. jerry brown's been kind of his own worst enemy when he talks about issues about why you want to have this tax increase. go out on the stump, say, it's about the budget, it's about jobs, even though his ads say it's about schools. i think that's been a very fascinating dynamic here. californians sense there are a lot of things wrong, a lot of things they want to fix. does the tax fix it? does jerry brown have the ideas to fix it? >> and john, i think, you know, you raised an issue that also

works in the presidential race. and that is one of the things that voters are looking at is the role of government. whether you talking a education funding, or on a national level, look at the reaction to hurricane sandy and the questions being posed to mitt romney about fema funding. >> belva: president obama get a bump and rating out of his handling -- >> in the last week, we've seen a sea change in the presidential race, obama not only got a bump in the polls, no doubt about it, but the fact he got the support of michael bloomberg and chris christie -- >> chris christie hasn't endorsed him. >> the fact is, he said he endorsed his role -- >> his leadership. >> his leadership, and i think that was very critical. it did raise the whole issue of, what is the role of government? and i think a lot of people stood back and watched some of the destruction there, i think the affects of sandy are going

to be talked about for a long time on this presidential race, coming where they did when romney has had some momentum going into it. we'll see if he does coming out of it. >> >> belva: i have to return to odette here. we talked about polls. where are issues that these groups of any of the grouches -- . >> looking beyond the numbers, they were able to glean direct insight from journalists in a weekly election series that we did and really the pulse points that were really critical. latino voters feel the crux of democracy means to them was being taken away. some significant shift that we saw, with filipinos, not the field poll, but an naa survey was released also recently, and it showed for the first time a really significant shift close to 40% of filipinos of unlikely asian voters, now either directly identifying with or leaning towards governor romney

and the gop ticket. and i spoke with high ranking gop grass roots filipino leader, what is this about? and he said, i can sum it up in one word. it's the economy. filipino republicans or maybe filipinos who have been democrats in the past or have not supported the gop are taking a second look because they have been hurt in the four years. but filipino democrats are also arguing, it's intergenerational. >> belva: let's talk about another group. jobs for african-americans, particularly males, poverty rate going up. nothing from those groups in terms of complaints? >> the unemployment numbers of african-american groups definitely being reported about widely, highest since the great depression. what our african-american media monitor base in washington, d.c. was able to glean from newspapers like "the washington afro," the range of black media, you can see from the endorsements, you can see from the kind of reporting they're doing, there is more of an

openness in the african-american community to recognize that president obama inherited two wars and a crumbling economy and that they are willing -- they recognize that four years was not enough of a timetable and they are lwilling to let him attempt to turn it around. >> how much does voter oppression -- >> that's an interesting point. with the african-american community, we just saw in florida, one polling presignature, 1,000 votes through some computer glitch that could be explained, voting oppression was a key issue with some african-american voters that had not supported president obama, being ticked off, being really mad and looking at this as a republican tactic to suppress their votes and now they are going to be full scale with president obama. >> belva: as we wrap this up, have any of you seen an election light this one in your years of working? >> no, never. this is one for the books. >> not at all. >> well, the dynamics are just so unusual. how many times do you have this

many storylines coming together, with the economy, with jobs, with the contentious race with a divided elector rate and with really no actual agreement on what to do. i think even inside political constituency groups, people bicker all the time about what's the appropriate course. >> belva: well, that is why the next story is going to move into view, because we've had so much bickering over so many weeks and no agreement over most of anything, so, here's something we can all pretty much agree on, if you live here. history is in the making this week as the san francisco giants celebrated their sweep of the detroit tigers in the world series. the second championship win for the team in three years. ♪ wednesday, a huge sea of orange and black filled civic center plaza. >> congratulation on sweeping the world series championship! >> mayor ed lee presented the team with a key to the city.

vips lined the stage, but the biggest applause came for the pitcher players. pitcher ryan vogelsong said they could not do it without the fans. >> we went to cincinnati, they weren't as loud as you. we went to st. louis, they weren't as loud as you. and quite frankly, detroit's fans weren't even close to as loud as you. and that's why we won. thank you very much. >> belva: well, as a woman who spent most of her time speaking about politics, it is so good to put on this orange and black and just be happy. so, be sure to tune in on tuesday evening, though, as we make history with our very first ever live election special. field poll director mark decamilo, "newshour's" spencer michael and scott schafer will sifer insight and analysis on local and statewide election

returns, directly following the pbs "news hour" national coverage, whenever that is. our thanks to all of you, our guests at the table and to all of you for watching. i'm belva davis. good night. ♪ san francisco ♪ open your glowing gate ♪ you have your way ♪ outside your door ♪ san francisco ♪ here is your ♪ wonder no more ♪ tell me you're the heart of it all ♪ ♪ san francisco